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Guided Meditation: Who Feels Feelings?

Greetings, dharma wayfarers. Greetings, and I see so many people joining from around the world. So salaam, marhaba, guten Tag—I don't know the rest of the languages, but greetings to all of you wherever you are in the world. Lovely to be together and to practice together.

Today is the culmination of our exploration together this week. We've been exploring feeling tone, in Pali, vedanā^[1] (v-e-d-a-n-a), which is simply noticing that with every object that arises in the six sense doors—the five sense doors and the door of the mind in Buddhism—that consciousness comes in contact with, there's also a feeling tone: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

It is how the mind perceives the object. These qualities, these tones, are not inherent in the object themselves. They are not a quality of the object, but rather the quality that the mind associates with the object. So we've been noticing that, exploring that, and exploring how the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral leads to thirst, grasping, wanting, not wanting, aversion, and so on, as we explored yesterday in the wheel of dependent origination^[2].

So today, the invitation is to explore that these tones arise and they pass. We explored impermanence a couple of days ago—that they're impermanent and changing. Today we'll explore that they just arise. The mind labels them, but they're not so personal. We'll explore the impersonality, which is also thought of as the aspect of not-self^[3]. They're not so personal; we don't have control over them. We don't control perceiving something as pleasant or unpleasant. They just arise the same way that different kinds of winds—hot winds, cool winds, etc.—just arise, or as clouds in the sky and weather arise. We don't follow every wind; we don't take it personally. They just arise.

And by realizing, by actually seeing that in our meditation—hopefully maybe once or twice this morning—we'll see that they don't need to be taken personally. It's just pleasant; okay, great. It's just unpleasant; okay, great. It's just neutral; great. It is what it is.

This clear seeing can bring so much freedom. We don't necessarily have to act on every single pleasant or unpleasant feeling that arises in our sphere of experience. We are not compelled. We don't have to be these ragdolls or marionettes hanging from the threads of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. We don't have to always be following the pleasant in our experience, and we don't always have to be pushing away the unpleasant. It can just be there, and it's okay. It doesn't bother us after we learn to see it for what it is. This clear seeing can bring so much freedom.

For our practice today, we will start again by settling into the breath and the body. When something arises—if you notice a sensation with the breath, a sound (sounds are the most easy to notice), or a thought—notice when the vedanā, the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling tone arises. When the mind associates with it, see it for what it is. See it lightly, as something that has just arisen out of your control, and let it be as it is. There doesn't have to be any reactivity to it. You can always come back to the breath and body, resting there until the next stimulus comes up that you want to notice. Otherwise, just rest with the breath and the body with a sense of spaciousness and calm.

I'd like to invite you to get into your meditation posture. If you need to shift and move to be more comfortable, or maybe sit up more straight, please do so.

Landing in the body. Landing in this moment. Letting go of any tension anywhere in your body you feel. Maybe taking the next three out-breaths to just arrive more fully in this moment, in this body.

Inviting your shoulders to drop. Your arms and hands to relax. Your face to soften. The forehead to soften, the jaw to soften—maybe even opening your mouth as wide as is comfortable on an exhale, and letting the jaw close naturally.

Inviting the center of gravity of your awareness to move down from your head, where we typically associate being aware with our thinking. Move it down, through your chest and abdomen, to your sit bones. As if you were receiving the breath and all sensations from your lower abdomen. Being aware of yourself and the world, hearing, receiving everything in your lower abdomen.

Simply resting with a relaxed body and mind, receiving the breath, settling in this moment.

Feeling embodied, noticing the breath within the body. As any objects arise in the sphere of experience, let there be awareness of their feeling tone: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

And then dropping this new reflection into the body. Not in the head, not thinking about it, but dropping the reflection of: Who feels? Who is it that's experiencing and perceiving the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? Again, not to think about it, but drop the reflection into the body and let it lead or guide you to perhaps a new way of seeing, a new insight into the nature of feeling tone.

I'm dropping in the reflection one more time into your body, as if you were dropping it in to resonate in your abdomen like a pebble in a calm pond, to see what arises. Who feels? Who perceives? Who notices? Who knows the vedanā, the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? Who knows? Who feels?

For the last moments of this sit together, let there be appreciation in your heart for yourself. For having showed up, for having practiced, and letting go of the outcome. Non-attachment to the outcome. You tried, you did your best, whatever the conditions of your mind. You don't have so much control over it, so letting that go. Letting go of the judgments and just letting there be appreciation that you showed up and did your best.

May aligning our actions with our intentions, offering the best we can offer ourselves and the world, be a cause and condition that supports our own waking up, and the waking up of all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy and free, including ourselves.